Sacrificial Muse (A Sabrina Vaughn Novel) (15 page)

THIRTY-NINE

Sabrina lowered her gun
slightly as she approached the dumpster but didn’t holster it, preferring the reassuring weight of it in her hand rather than on her hip. Aiming her mini-Mag at the shoes, she traveled a length of bare leg, stippled with spider veins, ending in what appeared to be the same embarrassingly short skirt she’d worn the night before. It was hiked high on her thighs, exposing her genital area. The rose, black and wilted from lack of water, was still nested in her matted, straw-yellow hair.

There was trauma to the throat, so much blood she couldn’t tell to what extent. The apron of red that covered her chest and bare lap shone glossy in the small beam of light, still growing and spreading, more blood pouring from the wound.

Sheila’s chest suddenly rattled, hitching in an effort to draw breath.

“Oh, God,” Sabrina heard herself say. The woman was still alive.

Covering the short distance between them, Sabrina fell to her knees. She had nothing to help staunch the flow but her hands, and she dropped her gun and flashlight to press them against the woman’s neck, trying to stop the blood that pumped against them. It was an incredibly stupid thing to do. Stupid and pointless, but she did it anyway.

She was responsible.

Sheila stared up at her for a moment, terror and disbelief shone plainly in her eyes. Her bloody hand flopped against her naked thigh. She was trying to pull her skirt down.

“Don’t die, Sheila. Hang on, okay?” she said, her hands gripped around the woman’s blood-slicked neck. “Help is coming. Help is coming.” It was a lie, and the woman seemed to know it. Her chest hitched one last time, fingers twitching across her blood covered thigh. Terror and disbelief gave way to a lifeless void as her eyes slipped to half-mast. She was dead.

Sabrina kept her hands pressed to her neck for a few more seconds before pulling away, the blood on them already beginning to cool.

It’d happened only minutes ago. No way the woman could’ve survived the loss of so much blood any longer than that. She imagined him luring Sheila into the darkened alley with another promise of easy money and distracting her until he saw Sabrina pass by on the sidewalk. As soon as she’d walked by, he’d slit her throat and walked away, leaving a trail for her to follow.

He’d known she’d come looking for him. That his carefully placed clues would lead her here. She was doing exactly as he expected. Playing along beautifully, following blindly. Letting guilt and anger lead the way. She wiped the tacky mess on the legs of her jeans before carefully working Sheila’s skirt down, covering her as best she could.

Sabrina sat back on her haunches and wiped her face against the sleeve of her jacket. Scanned the scene for what she knew had been left behind. There it was, crumpled between Sheila’s hip and the wall.

Another red envelope.

She took it, turned it over in her hands to see the now familiar name scrawled across it in the same familiar script.

Calliope.

She wadded it in her fist and jammed it into her jacket pocket just before a door banged open near the mouth of the alley.

Sabrina had her gun and mini-Mag in her hands in an instant. Standing, she aimed them both in the direction of the sound. “
Stop
.”

Jerry stood in the watery pool of light from the fixture above the dumpster. The second the beam from her flashlight hit his face, he dropped the bag of trash he carried, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. “Holy shit, lady. Don’t shoot, it’s just me—Jerry. Remember me? We talked like ten minutes ago,” he shouted, his hands flying above his head, eyes squinting into the beam of her flashlight.

She aimed the mini-Mag and SIG just over his shoulder, allowing him to unscrew his eyes. He looked at her, eyes blinking a few times before they widened in surprised disgust. “Is that blood?”

She ignored his question, firing off one of her own. “Is this where you saw Sheila?”

“What? Sheila?” He looked down the length of the alley, his eyes going wide again when they came to rest on the pair of shoes sticking out from behind the dumpster before looking back at her blood-covered jeans. “Is that her?”

Her patience, already stretched thin and brittle, disintegrated into dust. Crossing the distance between them in a few angry strides, she holstered her gun right before she reached out and grabbed him by the ear, twisting it so hard she was sure it’d pop right off his head.

“Hey!” he shouted, the cigarette sticking to his bottom lip for a second before tumbling to the ground. Jerry let out a pig-like squeal and started dancing around, slapping at her hands and yelling. “You can’t do this!
Let go!
This is police brutality—” The last of his complaint died in his throat as soon as he got a good look at her face.

“I don’t have time for your shit, Jerry.” She pulled him forward a bit. “Answer the question. Is this the last place you saw Sheila?”

“No. I told you—she was standing in her usual spot, I swear.”

She pulled him down the alley by his ear, jerking him to a stop in front of the dumpster before she trailed the mini-Mag up Sheila’s body, ending at her gore-splattered throat. “Was she alone? Did you see her with anybody?”

Jerry started to squeal and slap again. This time she let him go. “Is she dead? Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit …”

She took a half step toward him. “
Jerry
.”

His hands flew to his ears, protecting them from another grab and twist. “No. She was alone,” he said, eyes rounded and glued to Sheila’s shoes. “Should we call 911 or something?”

“She’s dead, Jerry. I think we’re past the
911 or something
stage, don’t you?” From the look he gave her, she knew what she said had hit him hard. Sighing, she tried to remember that stupidity wasn’t a capital offense. “I’m sorry. How many smoke breaks do you take a day?”

“Huh?” Jerry dragged his gaze away from Sheila’s platforms and shook his head. “I don’t know. A lot.”

“Did you see anyone with her yesterday? It would’ve been right before she came in to buy the cell phone,” she said, trying to put the sequence of events together in her head. “Someone who looked like he didn’t belong here. Someone you’ve never seen before.”

“There was this one guy. I thought he was kinda weird,” Jerry
looked at her hopefully. “He was wearing sunglasses and a hat at, like, four o’clock in the morning, which wasn’t the weird part—people around here do some pretty crazy shit, like there’s this one guy—”

“Jerry.” She said his name, hoping to reel him in.

“Sorry. Anyway, the really weird part was that he was wearing gloves. What kind of douche wears gloves?”

Her stomach clenched. “Gloves? Like latex gloves?”

“No. Leather ones. Looked expensive too,” Jerry said, shaking his head.

“Can you describe him?”

“Naw. He kept his back to the sidewalk most of the time. I just saw the hat and sunglasses from the side.” He tipped his quivering chin toward the dumpster. “You think the guy I saw her with killed her? Am I, like, a witness or something?”

She took a mental step back. Distributed the bulk of her emotions before she cracked under their weight. He
was
a witness. Right now, he was the only one she had, but she had no doubt that any further involvement with her would get him killed.

She didn’t answer him. Instead, she clicked off her mini-Mag and tucked it into her pocket, trading it for her cell phone. “Go inside, Jerry, and don’t come back out here. If anyone asks, you didn’t see a thing.” She gave him a push toward the door, waiting for him to disappear before she called it in.

FORTY

As soon as Sabrina
had called in that she’d found a dead hooker behind a dumpster, she made a call to Strickland. He didn’t answer.

The uniform standing in front of her was still talking. Behind her, Sabrina could see a small knot of reporters gathered at the mouth of the alley. A dead prostitute meant little, but add in the fact that it had been Sabrina Vaughn who found her and you had a story. Just the thought of it disgusted her. She could hear them shouting at her—feigned concern over what had happened to Sheila, questions about her involvement. Surprisingly, none of them were Croft.

It hardly mattered. Come tomorrow morning, the fact that she’d been here would be public knowledge. She waited for the beep and left Strickland a message she knew he’d probably ignore. Ending the call before dropping the phone into her pocket, she did her best to pretend she was listening to what the uniform in front of her was saying.

A part of her must’ve been listening because she reached out and took something—a package of disinfectant wipes. She tugged a handful from the package and began to clean her hands as best she could.

“CSU is going to need your clothes for trace.” The female officer who’d given her the wipes watched her scrub. “And you’re gonna have to get tested,” she said, crinkling her nose a bit.

Sabrina nodded. Not only had Sheila been a prostitute, the track marks on her arms said she’d been an IV drug user too. “I’ll go tomorrow. Thanks,” she said, dropping the wads of used wipes into the orange medical waste bag one of the CSU techs held open for her. They buzzed around her under the stark glare of the portable kliegs they’d dragged in to light the crime scene. A tech handed her a set of scrubs, and she waited while another spread out a small plastic tarp for her to stand on while she changed.

The uniform flipped open her note pad. “What happened?”

Sabrina stepped onto the tarp but waited for the flip open privacy screen to be deployed before she started talking. “I came down here to question the clerk in an attempt to identify a potential witness in the Kenny Denton case,” she said, handing the tech her jacket with a
you’re not keeping that
look. “He identified the witness as a prostitute named Sheila and told me where I could find her. While searching, I had cause to investigate the alley.” She stripped off her tank and cargos, dropping them on the tarp so they could be combed for trace. “I observed what appeared to be a woman’s shoe sticking out from behind the dumpster and investigated further, finding the victim injured but alive. I administered aid as best I could, but the victim expired moments after discovery,” she said calmly, relying on the strength and distance that being a cop gave her.

The uniform—her name was Levitt—flicked a quick look at her over the top of the screen. “Did you touch or disturb the body in any other way?” Levitt said.

Sabrina yanked the faded scrub top over her head and thought of Sheila, still propped against the wall, her head leaning against the rusty dumpster, neck and chest coated in blood so dark it looked like tar, skirt pushed up around her hips, fingers twitching against the hem. “I pulled her skirt down,” she said, her eyes locked onto Levitt’s, daring her to say a word about how she’d tampered with a crime scene or how she could’ve potentially compromised evidence.

She didn’t. “Did you see anyone leave the alley prior to discovery?”

Sabrina shook her head as she pulled the pair of drawstring pants into place. “No,” she said, keeping the rose petals scattered on the sidewalk to herself. Another link to her. One she couldn’t share with anyone but Strickland. She took her phone from her coat pocket and glanced at the screen. Nothing from her partner.

Levitt flipped her notebook closed and tucked it into the breast pocket of her uniform, taking a step back so the techs could collapse the privacy screen between them. “I’ll pass your statement onto the inspectors in charge of the case. I’m sure they’ll contact you if they have any questions,” she said, stepping aside, letting her know she was free to go.

She got as far as her car before she heard someone call out to her.

“Inspector!”

Turning, she caught sight of David Song jogging down the sidewalk, waving at her. She offered him a courteous smile, dividing her attention between him and fitting her key into the drivers’ side lock.

“Mr. Song, what can I do for you?” she said.

Song faltered a bit, his hand dropping to his side in an awkward flop that told her she’d been even rougher than intended. She sighed softly and tried again. “I’m sorry, Mr. Song. I’m just a bit … spent right now. This isn’t how I’d planned on spending my evening.”

He smiled a bit. “I can imagine. And please, for the hundredth time, call me David. Mr. Song was my father.”

She instantly rejected the familiarity. The Song family had long been reputed to be the head of the city’s largest
Geondal
—a Korean organized crime syndicate known as Seven Dragons. By all accounts David and his brothers were legitimate business owners, but the recent death of his father had created a power vacuum that begged to be filled. As the oldest of four brothers, David was the obvious successor, although there had been whispers of his brother Phillip taking the reins. “Is there something you needed?”

“I just … ” He looked over his shoulder at what looked like a three-ring circus spilling out of the alley behind his store. “That
is
the woman from the tapes you asked me for, isn’t it?”

She considered lying but really, what was the point? It was obviously a rhetorical question. “Yes.”

“A potential witness in the Denton case. That’s what you said—that she was a potential witness and that you needed to find her.” Song shifted from one foot to the next, hands dug into the pockets of his expensive jeans, cuffs of his long-sleeved oxford bunched up against his wrists.

“Is there a question in there?” she said, impatience leaking back into her tone. She focused her attention on turning her key, a signal for him to get on with it. She wanted to go home.

“Well, yeah … I guess I’m wondering if I need to be worried.” He must’ve realized how silly it sounded, the suspected heir apparent to San Francisco’s premier Korean crime family, twitching over a two-bit thug, because he smiled. “Regardless of what you may think, Inspector, I have no connection to the
Geondal.
I am a simple business owner.” He smiled, looking up at the bank of windows above the bodega. “I live above my store and pay my taxes like everyone else.”

She looked at him. “Your father was Seong Ki-nam. Sorry to be the one to break it to you but you’ll never be a
simple business owner
.”

“Perhaps that’s true, but I am not my father.” Headlights splashed across his face, revealing a complex mixture of grief and regret. Maybe a bit of relief. Whatever it was, it was enough to make her feel sorry for him.

“You’ve got nothing to worry about, Mr. Song. What happened to Sheila has nothing to do with Denton, and it’s nothing you should be concerned about,” she said.

“The woman you identified as a witness in my case is dead behind my store,” David said. “That seems like more than mere coincidence.”

She pulled her key from the lock. “Denton is in custody—my partner paid him a visit in lockup yesterday. I promise you that this has nothing to do with your case.”

Song let out a relieved sigh and nodded. “Okay … if you’re certain. Thank you, Inspector.” He pulled a hand from his pocket and offered it to her across the hood of her car and she leaned in to take it. Looking down, he pretended not to notice the dried blood caught up in the lines and grooves of her hand as they shook.